This tech company gives employees $5,000 for yearly vacation and 4-day weeks during the summer

Ask most
CEOs why they don't offer more perks to their employees, and
they'll probably say it's a matter of cost or resources.

Jason Fried, CEO of the web development company Basecamp, has another excuse: He's
already implemented them.

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"I'd love to continue to give more and more things to make people
happier and more comfortable," Fried told Business Insider. "I'm
just running out of ideas for it."

Basecamp's approach to employee benefits is to view
standard-of-living as a top priority. Instead of worrying how
much more productive employees will be or how much additional
revenue a given perk will yield, Fried views the perks as virtues
in and of themselves.

In addition to generous salaries, healthcare plans, 401(k)
matching, and time-off policies, Basecamp employees receive a
$5,000 annual vacation stipend; $100 a month for home massages;
$100 for fresh produce; 16 weeks paid parental leave; and tenured
sabbaticals every three years. They also work shortened 4-day,
32-hour weeks during the summer.

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One of the simplest reasons Basecamp can afford to give people
all these perks is that the company is small - it has just over
50 employees. But Fried said it also helps that the company is
entirely self-funded, with no board of directors.

"We do what we want to do, and we make quick calls," he said.

Whenever an employee has an idea for a new perk, they submit the
idea through a shared internal document. Then it's put to a vote
among the staff, and if enough of them like it, Fried weighs
whether it's feasible.

"Basically, if people ask for something that's reasonable, we
give it to them," he said.

Basecamp has some peers in the creative perk department. Digital
marketing company Steelhouse, for instance, offers employees
$2,000 a month to take any vacation they choose. Earlier this
year, the company also implemented
monthly three-day weekends known as Steelhouse Days.

A number of other larger companies have taken steps to be more
employee-friendly in recent years, particularly with parental
leave. In August 2015, Netflix began offering salaried employees
unlimited paid parental leave for a whole year. (Four months
later, it started
offering hourly workers 16 weeks of paid leave, where before
they received 12 weeks.)

Only a handful of people have left Basecamp - which launched in
1999 - in the last several years, Fried said. Some leave within
the first year, typically because they aren't a good fit, but if
they make it past the one-year mark they tend to stick around for
quite a while. More than 60% of the staff has been
there for four years or more. The perks might have something to
do with it.

Fried's ultimate goal is to keep people at the company, but not
at the office.

"Go enjoy the weather, go enjoy the weekend, go on vacation," he
said. "It's really about distancing yourself from this trend of
being always on, always working."